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PAGAN SONNETS 




























































































































































































































































































































































































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PAGAN SONNETS 


BY 

JOHN MYERS O’HARA 


J 


SMITH & SALE 
PORTLAND, MAINE 
MDCCCCXXIII 


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COPYRIGHT, I923, BY SMITH & SALE 





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© Cl A63SS97 





TO 

JOHN LEWIS HERVEY 
















CONTENTS 


THE HUSHED GODS 






3 

TANAGRA 






4 

AQU^E RELIGIO 






5 

LEKYTHOS 






6 

AN ARCADIAN POOL 






7 

BY THE EUROTAS 






8 

CHRYSANTHIS 






9 

PHiETON AND ICARUS 






10 

THE ^GINETAN 






11 

MARATHON . 






12 

THE SOPHIST 






13 

CORINTH 






14 

LAIS 






15 

PYXIS . 



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16 

FROM ILISSA’S TOMB 






17 

ACROPOLIS 






18 

BAS-RELIEF 






19 

BY DIYLLUS . 






20 

phryne’s TRIUMPH 






21 

ATTIC IDYL . 






22 


VI! 







MELEAGER ....... 23 

GREEK INTERIOR ...... 24 

VIA TENEBRARUM ..... 25 

FUNERAL EPIGRAM . . . . . 26 

HYBLA ....... 27 

TAORMINA ....... 28 

THE LATIN SEA ...... 29 

AFRICANUS ....... 30 

DII PENATES ...... 31 

A TEAR BOTTLE ...... 32 

caia’s STAR ...... 33 

BUCOLIC ....... 34 

THE MIME ....... 35 

THE LIBYAN ...... 36 

SEPTENTRION . . . . . . 37 

THE HOUSE OF THE FAUN .... 38 

AVERNUS ....... 39 

THE GARDENS OF SALLUST .... 40 

A DREAM OF CALIGULA . . . . . 41 

MESSALINA ....... 42 

VESPASIAN’S CIRCUS.43 

• • • 

Vlll 







THE WAGER.44 

Hadrian’s villa .45 

THE BATHS OF CARACALLA .... 46 

THE ROSES OF FAUSTINE .... 47 

THE GARDEN GOD ..... 48 

THE CRIMSON RAIN ..... 49 

FLUTE PLAYERS.50 

THE SIBYL’S DOOM . . . . . 51 

ANADYOMENE ...... 52 

THE FLAMING HEART ..... 53 

AVE VICTRIX ...... 54 

RUBRIA ....... 55 

A GREEK FRIEZE ...... 56 

PERPETUITY ...... 57 

THE RACE ....... 58 

A BURIAL URN ...... 59 

THE GREATER MYSTERY .... 60 

THE PAGAN END ...... 61 


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Je suis un homme des temps Homeriques; 
le monde ou je vis n’est pas le mien, et je 
ne comprends rien la societe qui m’entoure. 
Le Christ n’est pas venu pour moi; je suis 
aussi paien qu’ Alcibiade et Phidias. Je 
n’ai jamais ete cuiellir sur le Golgotha les 
fleurs de la passion, et le fleuve profond 
qui coule du flanc du crucifie et fait une 
ceinture rouge au monde, ne m’a pas 
baignee de ses dots; mon corps rebelle 
ne veut point reconnaitre la suprematie de 
l’ame, et ma chair n’entend point qu’on la 
mortifie. Je trouve la terre aussi belle que 
le ciel, et je ne pense que la correction de 
la forme est la vertu. 


— Th'eophile Gautier. 


PAGAN SONNETS 














































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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THE HUSHED GODS 


L ORN are the ways from old illusion won, 

A sense of loss through all the woodland floats, 
No satyr in the myrtle thicket dotes, 

For any timid oread to shun; 

Here tells no trodden glade of sylvan fun, 

Nor winding path where fauns crossed waving oats, 
No distant piping of delirious notes, 

No tracks of vanished revel in the sun. 

Where are the satyrs dear to genial Pan, 

The oreads that bathe in Dian’s pool, 

The jocund woodland horde, half goat, half man, 
The shy and fair of Daphne’s coverts cool? 

Of all who worshipped once and once believed, 

Glows no Hellenic heart yet undeceived? 



3 


TANAGRA 


O UT of the night in that necropolis, 

And the entombing sands, the lyric joy 
Of Hellas in these lovers, girl and boy, 
Laughs sunward from the tenebrous abyss; 

As arm-entwined they still embrace and kiss, 
Caresses that may sate but never cloy, 

The heart could dream no grief for these uncoy 
Figures of terra-cotta, born to bliss. 

Intuitive, and loving earth, the Greek 

Discerned the saner wisdom that we seek; 
Weary of worship for the noumenon, 

We turn from Calvary to Helicon, 

From subtle introspection to the free 
And soul-uncaring life of Arcady. 


4 


AQlLE RELIGIO 


M Y soul revolts at that ascetic sign, 

The Cross whose pity stifled Pagan glee; 
A strain of pride, imperial in me, 
Acclaims an alien heritage as mine; 

I would again, upon the Palatine, 

The body’s old divinity decree, 

Proclaim the creed of carnal purity, 

And place the wreath on plastic beauty’s shrine. 
Oh, I would be, at Diocletian’s Baths, 

An athlete, clean of body, sure of soul, 
Emerging from the stadium to stroll, 
Symmetrical of limb, the shaded paths, 

And watch the sun a deeper bronze emboss 
The torso of Apoxyomenos. 


5 


LEKYTHOS 


A ROUND the amphor darts the carven Pan 
After the nymph he never overtakes, 

She just eludes the laughing leap he makes, 
The arms that would embrace her while she ran; 

O sylvan, less than god and more than man, 

Vainly you strive for loveliness that breaks 
In marble curve, beyond your reach, and wakes 
A glow half plastic, half Arcadian; 

An ardor for the forest and the gleam, 

Under the languid leaves, of naked grace, 

The careless drifting of the life of dream, 

With no appointed hour, no destined place; 

The joy to render, in a verse sublime, 

The triumph of the marble over time. 


6 


AN ARCADIAN POOL 


A FURTIVE shadow, stealing from the trees, 
Troubles the water with a gray regard; 

All day its placid mood was left unmarred, 
Nor ruffled with the breath of any breeze; 

A magic mirror, sensitive to seize 

Skies that the flaming spears of dawn had scarred, 
And now, ere somber gates of dusk are barred, 
Departing vesper’s silver verities. 

Across the surface, from the leaning pine, 

The creeping shadow sends a sudden chill, 

And crimson tremors deepen and define 
The sinking chalice on the distant hill, 

Whence the last glory of the sun will spill 
Over its fluid heart the flush of wine. 


BY THE EUROTAS 


T HE reeds of the Eurotas faintly sigh; 

Daphnis, a god is grieving! now the wind 
Is swaying them together; see, they bend 
And a sad tune is in them, Pan is nigh! 

The woods are still, a paler green the sky, 

The dead leaves strew the ways that we descend; 
Be prudent, Daphnis, lest our steps offend 
Some lurking nymph our eyes may not descry. 

The flock has wandered far, brown shepherds pass, 

As lithe of limb, with hyacinthine curls, 

But none like thee, my Daphnis! shepherd girls 
With eyes as blue as mine, some fair, alas! 

How swift the shadow lengthens from the west, 
Daphnis, my heart beats sadly in my breast! 


8 


CHRYSANTHIS 


T HE wooded vales are drowsy with the heat, 

Under the drooping boughs a satyr sleeps; 

The myrtle stirs! Pan from the thicket peeps, 
And blows a flute of ardor, low and sweet; 

Above the pool the branches densely meet, 

Weaving a leafy roof whose shadow keeps, 

With greener tinge upon its limpid deeps, 

A lucent gloom to lure the sylvan feet. 

Long stems and leaves of severed lilies pile 
The mossy edge and float upon the pool, 

Broken for garlands by Chrysanthis while 
She moved among the clusters, white and cool; 

The nymph who listens as she weaves a snare 
Of trailing fillets for her amber hair. 


9 


PHOTON AND ICARUS 


N OT as the daring filcher of the fire, 

Scaling the heaven to bring the gift for man, 
Not so your selfish dreams of glory ran, 

Ye vain provokers of immortal ire; 

Yet were ye not, so near to your desire, 

Half pitied by the power Olympian, 

For not the ice and vulture were the ban— 

Ye fell with flaming pinions to expire! 

Oh, kinder than the bleak Caucasian heights, 

The deep Eridanus and ocean gave, 

Ye vanquished darers of audacious flights, 

The swift commiseration of the wave; 

Oh, Icarus and Phaeton, well for ye 

The cooling river and the healing sea! 


10 


THE TlGINETAN 


B ELOW lay Delphi and his goal of fame; 

The dawn was breaking, Phoebus from his bow 
Let arrow after golden arrow go, 

Till colonnade and temple caught the flame; 

Across the hills, so soon to know his name, 

With heart exulting, veins in virile glow, 

And sanguine for the struggle’s crucial throe, 

The unknown runner from Angina came. 

He ran, he conquered! “Swiftest foot of all,” 

The choric voices sang; in marble flight 
Great sculptors carved him; wide his city’s wall 
Was breached for his return; but his delight, 

When old, was still to hear, in youth’s abode, 

His childrens’ children chanting Pindar’s ode. 


11 


MARATHON 


D OWN the long slope, as through its barriers might 
A wall of water rushing from the steep, 

The impetuous Greeks in semicircle sweep, 

Their blazing helmets blending in the light; 

Against the embattled Persian hurls the bright 
Resistless billow, strewing heap on heap 
The broken ranks of Datis to the deep, 

And snatching at the galleys in their flight. > 

And was it he, the great Miltiades, 

Who glimpsed upon Pentelicus the shield, 

The treacherous signal for the doom of Greece? 

Athens to save, he hurried from the field, 

Outsped the galleys of the foe and hurled 

From Xerxes’ hand the scepter of the world. 


12 


THE SOPHIST 


P ROTAGORAS, of Abdera, today 

Speaks at the house of Kallias! O friend, 
Antisthenes, I beg you to attend, 

And hear the master sophist! Come, I pray, 

And we will shape our project on the way; 
Together we will answer him and bend 
Our subtlest dialectic to the end; 

There may be truth in what he has to say. 

And yet, no doubt, we shall divine the flaw 
That nullifies his logic, even though 
So little of the absolute we know; 

“Man is the measure of all things and law 
Is more than nature;” so his teachings go— 

Come, hear Protagoras of Abdera! 


13 


CORINTH 


C ORINTH! his senses by the word are wooed! 
Incarnate is Cotytto’s city seen, 

Proudly, like some incomparable queen, 
Reclining on her throne to match the mood; 
Abashless in her naked beauty viewed, 

And worshipped by the world, she basks serene, 
Her glance upon the temples where the green 
Gulf gleams between their marble amplitude. 
Corinth! the word is memory to his ear! 

He hastens back to claim the olden bliss; 
Turning the street, the temple steps are near— 
Run to thy lover, Anasyrtolis! 

Sad was the vigil, all thy roses sere, 

Long didst thou wait, flower girl of Salamis! 


14 


LAIS 


A ND thou didst scorn me, Anaxagoras, 

Passing my door with glances of disdain, 
And thrice I vowed to Kypris, at her fane, 
To vanquish thee, or nevermore, alas, 

Gladden to see my beauty in the glass; 

I swore to bind thee with a golden chain, 

Nor were these peerless charms displayed in vain, 
For, melting at a glimpse, thou couldst not pass. 

Am I not more than all thou dost revere? 

Canst thou not hear me, murmuring like a bee, 
My moist lips like a rosebud at thine ear? 

And are there sweeter words that thou wouldst hear? 
Canst thou not, in the arms of Lais, see 
How Eros jests at thy philosophy? 


15 


PYXIS 


H E coated with a ground of brilliant green 

The rounded shape of red Corinthian clay; 
Then, with a darker hue to overlay, 

Giving its oval curve an ebon sheen, 

He glazed the surface for the mythic scene; 

But first he made the vine’s descending spray 
Around the rim in purple clusters play, 

And dancing nymph and satyr intervene. 

A circling pageant, then, in polychrome, 

He painted Dionysos and his train, 

The bassarids as snowy as the foam, 

The harnessed panthers like the amber grain, 

And on the cover, with a sapphire gloss, , 

A ring of maidens playing kottabos. 


16 


FROM ILISSA’S TOMB 


T HIS polished mirror and the cameo 

Are from Ilissa’s tomb; two thousand years 
Since they were laid, with his despairing tears, 
Beside her funeral urn; she died, the glow 
Of youth upon her; still her treasures show 

How fair her face; the profile, that appears 
Cut in the onyx, faultlessly adheres 
To beauty’s subtle line, and just below, 

Phrygillos carved her name; her lover gave 
This glyptic gem to her, the mirror, too, 

Wherein her eyes, as from a silver wave, 

Discerned each virgin charm, the brow that knew 
His reverential lips, the mouth whose kiss 

Should never crown him with the bridal bliss. 


17 


ACROPOLIS 


T HE violet tint is on the fabled sea, 

Exotic fragrance freshens in the breeze, 
But not a galley toward the Cyclades 
Moves outward in the twilight’s mystery; 

Along the skies, a marble epopee, 

The brow of Athens lifts its shattered frieze, 
But men forget the gods they make and these 
Are empty dwellings of the deity. 

O hill of golden temples, how the flight 

Of shadow strives to shield the wounds of time 
And now their blasted dream of the sublime 
Retrieves its lost perfection from the blight, 

A harmony of marble that the light 

Of dawn shall strike no more in any clime. 


18 


BAS-RELIEF 


C RES I LAS cast the bas-relief in bronze, 

And Phocion the marble copy wrought, 

A shattered slab where Grecian warriors fought 
In sculptured combat with the Amazons; 

As stricken in a flight of wounded swans, 

Ischomache unto her knee is brought, 

Recoiling with her virile maidens caught 
In ambush by the rushing Myrmidons. 

On Pythionica’s sarcophagus, 

For fleeting time, it told its marble tale, 

But what may all its story now avail 
To the forgotten love of Harpalus? 

What all the struggle, and the heart’s great doom? 

The word of Athenaeus is her tomb! 


19 


BY DIYLLUS 


I N Paros once, with faith that would not swerve, 

He wrought for love, and beauty was his hope; 
And from the neck’s perfection fell the slope 
Of the white back, the clear and nubile curve 
Of arm and shoulder, and with less reserve, 

From the inviolate breast, the splendid scope 
Of flank and faultless limb; as loth to cope 
With time whose dooming verities enerve 
And desecrate, he carved no lines to claim 
The temple’s shadow, but the violet light 
Of a dim garden knew his nymph and name; 

And twice a thousand years have taken flight;— 

In a long aisle of art I mused by these, 

A base and torso, son of Xenocles! 


20 


PHRYNE’S TRIUMPH 


D ISROBING half reluctant, half in pride, 

Upon the sacred Eleusinian shore, 

Where thrice ten thousand waited to adore, 
She ventured in the water till the tide 
Embraced her beauty, yielded as a bride; 

Thus never on the natal wave that bore 
No fairer charms, and none that ravished more, 
Rose Kypris from the sea so glorified. 

Poseidon’s billow with a gentle swell, 

Below her bosom, girdled her with blue, 

A vesture sinking limpid as the dew, 

Until the foam around her ankles fell; 

And from the ripple, radiantly nude, 

She claimed the worship of the multitude. 


21 


ATTIC IDYL 


T WO lovers, cheek to cheek, his curling locks 

Commingling darkly with her tresses blonde, 
Look out across the emerald sea beyond 
A slope of blossoms; shoreward, near the rocks, 

A galley rides; brown shepherds, snow of flocks 
On the far hill; and tall the drooping frond 
Behind the marble seat, where Lykas fond 
Holds to Karysta’s lips a rose that mocks 
Their scarlet pout; an opalescent mist 

Limns the still sea and turns the sky’s deep blue 
To rifted azure, lost in amethyst 
Of Lydian hills; and thus the painter drew 
These poet lovers with the laureled brows— 

Was it a panel in Aspasia’s house? 


22 


MELEAGER 


W EAVE me a garland such as Diodes 

Once welcomed from thy hand, O Gadarene! 
A wreath whose laurel intertwines its green 
With flowers that symbol Song’s divinities. 

Erinna’s crocus, sweet to Attic bees, 

Nearest to Sappho’s glowing rose should lean, 

And lilies of Anyte bloom between 
The golden wheat-sprays of Bacchylides. 

But rather would I breathe the lover’s flowers 

Culled languid at the tryst in dreaming hours, 

The crown of dill for Heliodora’s hair, 

Or reddest rose for Demo’s bosom bare, 

Or the fresh nosegay for Zenophila, 

From the far garden of thy Syria. 


23 


GREEK INTERIOR 


L ONG shadows fill the chamber and the girls 
Like ivory tint its Greek interior, 

As might on amber velvet sleekly stir 
Four shining and superbly rounded pearls; 

One, yawning, stands, and one, awaking, whirls 
Aside her filmy robe of lavender, 

And one, upon a couch of yellow fur, 
Unheeding, in exhausted slumber, curls. 

And one lithe girl, with eyes of opal gray, 

Strange orbs that hoard some hieratic light, 
In lassitude looks broodingly away; 

Out of the present, into what far night 
Of beauty’s unforgotten doom does she, 

Turning her head, with somber dreaming see? 


24 


VIA TENEBRARUM 


H ASTEN, Rhodanthe, ere thy beauty goes, 

And love that gives to youth its brief delight, 

No wrinkle mars thy throat whose rounded white 
Curves to thy bosom fragrant as the rose; 

Hasten, and let us love! the moment glows 

With all the mirthful charm that time must blight, 
Give me a thousand kisses, for the night 
Will come too soon, and then the long repose. 

And thou, Rhodanthe, wilt be here no more, 

And none will see thy shadow on the wall, 

No lover hang a garland at thy door, 

Or wait at twilight for thy footstep’s fall; 

And I will vanish, I who now implore, 

And the vast darkness will be over all. 


25 


FUNERAL EPIGRAM 


P ASSER, if thine was ever for the Muse 

The glow of ardent youth, then linger here! 
Linger beside my tomb and deign a tear, 

The purest of libations none refuse! 

Here lies my dust! I felt my heart diffuse 

Through all that pastoral joy and love made dear; 
Lykas, my name; my songs they still revere 
In this, my natal isle! With thy adieus 
To Ceos, lovely Cyclad, and the shore 
That knew the footstep of Simonides, 

Pause for a lesser singer; ah, no more 
His flute will thrill beneath the olive trees! 

Passer, the lover of Praxinoe 

Breathes from his tomb a long farewell to thee! 


26 


HYBLA 


O LD haunter of the slopes below the blue 
Summit of Hybla, tarry nor refuse 
To tilt the rose and drink auroral dews! 
This hour of dream is mine and thine the clue; 
Where are the paths Theocritus once knew, 

The villa in the vines that held the Muse? 

Far under us the wraith of Syracuse 
Curves inward with the sea and haunts the view. 

O bee of Hybla, this is Sicily! 

Let me breathe deep, old gods of earth and air, 
Of all that made the Pagan world so fair; 

My years are alien but the blood in me 
Mounts with the corybantic ecstasy; 

O bee of Hybla, comfort my despair! 


27 


TAORMINA 


T HE slow and curling smoke from Etna’s cone 
Drifts up in lazy spirals to the sky, 

Far down the shores in dreamy glamor lie, 
With curving cities, purple hills that throne 
Temple on temple; up the slopes are blown, 

By sleepy winds, odors that seem a sigh; 

But desolate the theatre, where I, 

Sole listener, can hear the tragic tone, 

Rolling the golden syllable of Greece, 

Leap from the lips of pale Antigone; 

'‘Father, O father!” comes, and will not cease, 
The cry of anguish from her heart to me;— 

O nature’s beauty, words of Sophocles, 

O templed hills, O unforgetting sea! 


28 


THE LATIN SEA 


T HE wonder of its blue is under us; 

We see, with glamor of Homeric lore, 
Shimmer the wave that lured Ulysses’ oar, 
And Jason faring for the fabulous. 

Yon trellised slopes were thine, Theocritus! 

And those trim galleys, bound for Capri’s shore, 
Dart from the cove and follow, as of yore, 

The burnished trireme of Tiberius. 

Hellas and Rome, templed antiquity, 

Looming along thy shore, O Latin Sea, 

Live once again beneath the dreaming glance; 
Around thee clings the virgin world’s romance, 

And far beyond the Pillars of Hercules 
Glimmers the isle of the Hesperides! 


29 


AFRICANUS 


T HE splendid pageant of the conqueror wound 
Superbly up the Capitolian hill, 

A hundred trumpeters responding till 
They shook the air with crashing golden sound; 
The trophy-laden chariots passed, and bound 
Captives behind them, elephants to thrill, 
Numidian chiefs, chained women, fifers shrill; 
And then the lictors, and the laurel-crowned 
Victor of Zama, in his chariot, clad 

In the deep purple with the stars of gold, 
Waving the scepter, bowing to the mad 
Thunder of Rome in exultation rolled; 

And valiant rank on rank, in glory’s glow, 

The laureled legions followed Scipio. 


30 


DII PENATES 


E ACH autumn when the leaves had turned to flame, 
And ripened vineyards basked with purple glow, 
Across the hills and toward Posilipo, 

To the old villa of his youth he came; 

He left the city and the high acclaim 
Of consular celebrity to show, 

Firm in the rustic faith of long ago, 

Its reverence to his ancestral name. 

Slowly along the shepherd-trodden track, 

Reining his horse at times, he journeyed back, 

Pious Fabius to his boyhood’s home; 

And in his heart, vain of the gods whose might 
Templed the Tiber, doming every height, 

Were dearer deities than those of Rome. 


31 


A TEAR BOTTLE 


O FRAGILE bauble where her grief was told, 

Long emptied of the drops that slowly slid 
Through the clasped fingers, from the languid lid, 
To fill thy frigid heart and grow as cold! 

What ruthless hand with sacrilege was bold 
To ravage thus her burial pyramid, 

And pilfer thee, her lacrymal, and bid 
Thy shattered crystal yield its tribute gold. 

Some grief memorial thou mightst avow! 

Were thine the tears the girl for Caesar shed, 

Or when, in dire alarm, with pinions spread, 

From Antony her galley turned its prow? 

Or were they love's last pledge to him when brow 
And bust were prone, and Egypt’s siren dead? 


32 


CAIA’S STAR 


Y ON star is thine! climbing the Roman skies, 
Above the Appian Way, as fair of light 
As when Caius and Caia knew the night; 
Yes, thine the star that nestles low and lies 
In lustrous dream between the secret sighs 
Of night’s black bosom, as a jewel might, 

Cradled on some bare ebon breast, requite 
Its velvet couch with amorous surmise. 

Yon star is thine! but near me is a gem 

Of astral worth, half hidden from my gaze; 

Under the scarf, as filmy as a haze, 

It lifts its balmy dual diadem, 

My star, your heart, whose fond pulsations claim 

Mine, burden sweet, as flame that flows on flame. 


33 


BUCOLIC 


C OME, Melibceus, leave thy resting flock, 

The shade is grateful and thy reed in tune, 
The woods are silent in the heat of noon 
Save for the rill that trickles down the rock; 

The figs and honey wait, and we will knock 
The clinging clover from the flagon soon, 
Contentment makes our frugal meal a boon, 
Though the proud tables of the Caesar mock. 
Fortunate shepherd, hast thou not the kiss 
Of slender Amaryllis on thy lips? 

The cares of state and wealth are thine to miss, 
And thine the day that unregretted slips, 

When hearth smoke rises from the roofs afar, 

And sunset leaves Soracte to a star. 


34 


THE MIME 


M AECENAS enters, Flaccus at his side, 

They greet the friends that pass them in the aisle, 
The marble tiers are filling fast the while, 
Patricians gossip aught that may betide; 

Fair women whisper, slaves with jars divide 

The wine they cool with snow, and slowly file 
Among the guests; slim girls appear and pile 
The urns with roses, ere the mime shall glide, 

Under their glow, from dreamed Arcadian lands; 

Ah, soon the beaked and frowning Arrius 
Shall rage to see proud Tuccia gloating on 
The lithe Bathyllus, who, with lilied hands 
And flexile limbs in postures amorous, 

Portrays the love of Leda and the Swan. 


35 


THE LIBYAN 


T HE chariots turn, parading once again; 

First, the white stallions of Clazomense, 
The victors at Nemea; then, two gray, 
Two black of Arrius; the desert strain, 

Arched neck and fiery eye, make none disdain 
The sleek brown four that follow; far away 
Idumea bred the next, a reddish bay; 

And last, the Libyan, with quadruple rein 
Curbing, while Rome applauds, the favored four; 
Breathless the circus waits! A sudden roar! 
The race is on; and still the leaders are 
Isicrates and Dion; then, a flash, 

Lo, the invincible Libyan plies the lash, 

Passing them in the whirlwind-footed car! 


36 


SEPTENTRION 


S TOOPING I read upon the stele this, 

An epitaph that left my heart entranced; 

“Our little child, Septentrion, who danced 
Oft in the theatre of Antipolis, 

And gave to all the joy that once was his;” 

Gray words of grief on which my eyes had chanced 
In a gray land; and, as the years advanced, 

What pain was thine, Septentrion, to miss! 

Your little feet, so blithely dancing on, 

Swift as a sunbeam out of life and light, 

Recalling love has rescued from the night; 

With graceful steps that cheat oblivion, 

You come across the ages, clad in white, 

A little ghost to me, Septentrion! 


37 


THE HOUSE OF THE FAUN 


I CROSS the portal but I hear no hum 
Of Latin voices in the silent street, 

No proud Pompeian host is mine to meet, 

The fountain near the peristyle is dumb; 

I wait the patron who will never come, 

Rhetor and poet graciously to greet, 

Nor will they tread with their returning feet 
The rich mosaic of the atrium. 

Unbidden to a feast forever gone, 

I catch the ghostly music of a flute, 

Where once, a bronze of Myron, stood the Faun; 
And sound of genial voices that dispute, 

Suave to affirm and artful to refute— 

Deipnosophists that banquet till the dawn. 


38 


AVERNUS 


T ALL cypress trees stand mournfully around 
The somber road of gradual descent; 
Easy the way by which the manes went 
To the sad realms of shadow under ground, 

The ashen way that all must tread though bound 
To life with joy or woe or wise content;— 

O Quintus, what malign presentiment 
Shakes me tonight at each uncertain sound? 

I pray the smiting gods that we may go 

Together, hand in hand, the returnless way; 
But if I fare alone, from any day 
Of our high discourse, to pale fields below, 

I shall not falter, friend, nor hear with fright 
The hound of Hades barking in the night. 


39 


THE GARDENS OF SALLUST 


T HE lavish ivy overruns the white 

Of girding walls crowned with an Attic frieze, 
The terraced slopes are thick with ilex trees, 
A rill falls foaming from a ferny height; 

Paths curve to nooks of pastoral delight, 

Where oleanders, nodding in the breeze, 

Bend to the dryad that Cleomenes 
Carved with the satyr seizing her in flight. 

And hidden in the trees a little lake 

Circles an isle whose shores invite the swan; 

Only red roses cover it and make 
The slender temple flush vermilion, 

Bathing its tenant in a crimson fire, 

The Goddess of implacable desire. 


40 


A DREAM OF CALIGULA 


U NDER her lashes lurk the flames that flash 
A mad defiance at her beauty’s risk; 

Her heavy hair, red as a burnished disk, 
Unloosens as their brooding glances clash; 

She dares the dreaded scar in anger rash; 

He frowns, the pale Caligula, while brisk 
Slaves strip away her robe with silken whisk, 
And leave her nude and shrinking from the lash. 
And she, as flawless Parian, must twine 

The onyx pillar with her shackled hands, 
While ready now the swarthy Nubian stands, 
Waiting the torture-loving Caesar’s sign; 

He sees the whip flash in the flaming dream, 

And the red welt across her shoulders gleam. 


41 


MESSALINA 


H ER tresses flow as fire around her face, 

Fair with the bloom of youth, yet ashen old 
With the long tale of lechery untold, 

That leaves its smile of candor a grimace; 

Red lips whose kiss would fathom all the base, 

A leopard’s languid eyes of greenish gold, 

And a mad heart that hungers still to hold 
The gladiator in a close embrace. 

She rides the wind of rumor like a stream 

Of flame where sun and broken tempest meet, 
And though the heart of Rome is at her feet, 

Wild deeds for beauty dominate her dream; 

And from the pyre of Ilium in her eyes, 

Stupendous conflagrations scorch the skies. 


42 


VESPASIAN’S CIRCUS 


V AST canopies across its crater bloat, 

Whose shadows splash the sands with purple light; 
The swarming tiers, great slopes of curving white, 
Vent roar on roar as from one bellowing throat; 

Above the din, cries of the jungle float, 

Mad howl of rage and scream of ferine fright, 

Turmoil and dust, and beasts in mangled might, 

While over all the grave Augustans gloat. 

Under their jutted bastion tumult-tamed, 

The embers of the combat in his eye, 

Licking his bloody jaws, a wild dog slinks; 

And where the Caesar’s flambeaus flare a maimed 
Mammoth in frenzy sweeps his trunk on high, 

And hurls against the wall a writhing lynx. 


43 


THE WAGER 


T HUS Sextius, at the banquet’s end; “I know 

You like my slave from lands beyond Tyrrhenus 
Now mark, Vitellius, you fat Silenus, 

She is a jewel worthy of the glow 
Of that white Parian you treasure so; 

Come, let the dice decide their fate between us, 

The lucky one who makes the high of Venus 
Shall take the girl or statue for the throw.” 

“Done!” said Vitellius, “the ivories quick, 

And Jove be with me that I do the trick! 

Myrina, you are mine! and my delight 
Shall flit between two works of art tonight;” 

“But wait,” said Sextius, “hurry not so fast, 

I do not lose until the dice are cast.” 


44 


HADRIAN’S VILLA 


G REEN lizards glide along the grass where erst, 

Acanthus-carved and rose-entwined, the three 
Pergolas gleamed in rival harmony; 

Vista of marble deities where first 

His dreams of art’s magnificence were nursed; 

And as he passed each white divinity, 

He saw great temples rise beyond the sea, 

And Greece recrowned to sate his spirit’s thirst. 

Art’s regal devotee, with grace supreme, 

He pledged the purple at perfection’s shrine; 

Alone the lure of Hellas held his dream, 

Above all pride of conquest more divine; 

He gave imperial years that she might reign, 

And made the world her worshipper again. 


45 


THE BATHS OF CARACALLA 


I WAS the water, cold and clear, that flowed 
Along the Claudian aqueduct to Rome; 

As snow I drifted from my mountain home 
And felt the genial sun that on me glowed; 

And I dissolved and left my steep abode, 

A torrent through the wild ravines I ran, 
Until I found the arches made by man, 

And under Roman streets a dungeon road. 

But in the baths of Caracalla now, 

With silver gurgle from a gorgon’s mouth, 

I issue warm and scented as the south; 

And near me, on the marble steps, art thou, 
Chrysis, the slave beloved, whose charms divine, 
Nude and immersed in me, will soon be mine! 


46 


THE ROSES OF FAUSTINE 


H E heard the lions in the grated den 

Roaring the challenge of their jungle wrath, 
And confident he issued from the bath, 
Rippling his splendid muscles; swiftly, then, 

With shining shield and sword he bounded in 
The bright arena, down the sandy path, 

Where the red stains, the struggle’s aftermath, 
Should sweeten the flung roses he would win. 

The shouts should deafen downward plunging like 

Huge waves upon him, but his glance should turn 
From the mad rabble to a face serene; 

Under her torch-crowned bastion he would strike 
Down the last lion, seeing her eyes burn, 

And catch great roses falling from Faustine. 


47 


THE GARDEN GOD 


A BOVE my head, almond and lemon trees, 

Like lovers, intertwine their scented boughs; 
Such is the ceiling of my sylvan house, 
Masses of snowy blossoms that the breeze 
Stirs in the garden dear to Herodes; 

Here Annia made her sweet betrothal vows, 

She, the beloved, the long lamented spouse, 

Still mourned by him with anguished memories. 

Even upon the white exedra where 
The bases of Pentelic marble bear 
Their carven names, he ponders now and grieves; 
And in the wind that sighs among the leaves, 

He hears again the voice of Annia, 

“Where thou art, Caius, there am I, Caia!” 


48 


THE CRIMSON RAIN 


I N the triclinium of Caesar none, 

Save those whom youth and beauty gave the right, 
Reclined upon the couches in the light 
Of flambeaus from the Temple of the Sun; 

And when they nodded on oblivion, 

Sated with wine and lust and jaded quite, 

Lo, at a certain moment in the night, 

The waning orgie missed the imperial One. 

And soon a rose fell from the ceiling high 

And lodged between a vestal’s ravished breasts, 
Another and another, and the guests 
Caught them as rain of crimson from the sky; 

And then they struggled madly while the flood 
Fell smothering them in roses red as blood. 


49 


FLUTE PLAYERS 


W ITH brown limbs crossed the girls from Cyprus sit, 
Their red lips, like the deepest tinted fruit, 
Pursed sedulous against the slender flute, 

While nimble fingers o’er the notches flit; 

The angry Claudia, brooding opposite, 

Dreams of her lover and their mad dispute, 

Then starts to follow, half irresolute, 

The brutal Goth that she in fury bit. 

The plaintive music soothes her and she stays 
The impulsive step nor hurries to the door, 

Let the Subura claim him, she would raise 
No finger now to hold him any more; 

Why longer care, with strains from flutes so sweet, 

And Glycera and Myrtis at her feet? 


50 


THE SIBYL’S DOOM 


A ND were the gods of high Olympus dead? 

In vain he strove to make himself believe 
That they had vanished and the world should grieve, 
Regretful of their joy forever fled; 

Had Delphi left the final word unsaid? 

Apollo’s oracle could not deceive, 

He would invoke the sibyl and receive 
From her prophetic lips the sentence dread. 

And Delphi sent the last and somber word! 

Sadly he stood, with drooping head, and heard; 

“Apollo has no laurel, tell the king, 

No home, no crystal fountain now to sing, 

Deserted are his shrines where none adore, 

The world has fallen, beautiful no more!” 


51 


ANADYOMENE 


L O, the ineffable form their dream extolled, 

When crowning lofty hills, her temples drew 
The devotees whose hearts invoked the true 
Daughter of God that Sappho hymned of old; 

Beauty whose vision, wrought serenely bold, 

With love’s revering eyes they dreamed to view, 
The carnal grace whose sway their wisdom knew, 
The gracious line of their heroic mould. 

And now, with Grecian faith, our eyes behold 
Her limbs cleave curving to their natal blue, 

Her hair, whose every tress the zephyrs woo, 
Flow free along the foam in lustrous gold; 

While conscious of the life that thrills her through, 
Soft to adoring Loves her lids unfold. 


52 


THE FLAMING HEART 


A RE those steep forests groves of Ilian fir, 

Over whose tops the winds of vesper run? 

Is that immobile watcher Thetis’ son, 

That burning fragrance cinerary myrrh? 

Do large libations to the gods aver, 

Poured round that pyre, the vanquished Myrmidon, 
Or sleeps some weary child of Helicon, 

The sempiternal sea his thurifer? 

Disconsolate as lorn Achilles lost 

In grief and shadow on the waveward sand, 

He sees the flame, by the mad mistral fanned, 

Feed on the heart the restful hand had crossed, 

And glutted to the full of its desire, 

Thrill golden with the dead companion fire. 


53 


AVE VICTRIX 


T HE naked Huntress from the woods at dawn 

Strode with her bow and quiver, while the bright 
Auroral silver, spreading from the height, 
Revealed the covert of the frightened fawn; 

In swift pursuit, no deep abyss might yawn 

With torrent wild to check her panting flight, 

And here in marble, curtained from the night, 

She strides with all the grace of eons gone. 

Peerless against the silk of saffron tint, 

Behind her hung, the carven goddess seemed, 

And whiter than a sudden snow’s descent, 

Kallista’s shoulder from its raiment gleamed; 

Then regally—a crowning triumph this— 

She stood ungarbed beside the Artemis! 


54 


RUBRIA 


A CROSS the shadow, in the carnal glare, 

I see you stand in semi-nude perfection, 

With eyes that turn their fire to introspection, 
And matchless limbs and comely shoulders bare; 

The insolence of beauty in your air 

Of proud dominion, scorning to subjection 
The predal lusts that rise in your direction, 

As cliffs repulse the ravenous waves that dare. 

Such posture might a pythoness assume, 

Disdainful at the immolating shrine, 

When the revealing vestal’s rite was ended; 

Only the dying flambeau in the gloom, 

The body’s beauty shaming the divine, 

While the voluptuous incense still ascended. 


55 


A GREEK FRIEZE 


A S figures on a frieze processional, 

In marble march across the metope 
Of some old temple to eternity, 

Go golden-stained of time’s smooth kiss, so all 
Those loves that carved for life its coronal 

File slow across the flame of dreams for me, 

And I, with brooding reminiscence, see 
Each profile flower and fade, and shadow fall. 

They pass with gaze oblivious of mine 

That singles those undying passion knew; 

She, tigress-orbed, whose sin was blight malign 
To youth’s high thought; and she, once regnant through 
Her lips’ red luxury; and she, who drew 

My soul to her with song as to a shrine. 


56 


PERPETUITY 


E NTHRONE thy dream, and leave no tragic stress 
For vain remembrance of the mortal mood, 
But true to art’s eternal attitude, 

Achieve its form serene and passionless; 

Restrain the line that trembles on excess, 

And let no vital groove of grief intrude, 

Accord each contour thy solicitude, 

Make all the curves of beauty coalesce. 

So Phidias might have spoken; such, I deem, 

His exhortation to exalt the dream, 

For dreams, that dare the absolute, repose 
Immobile in the peace that sculpture knows, 

Sublimely unperturbed, on temples bright, 

White forms to which the gods descend the night. 


57 


THE RACE 


E VER I follow where the vision fled, 

Match stride with stride, virile and swift as when 
After the fleet and fair Ionienne, 

Hippomenes, straining each muscle, sped; 

Ever the glimmer of her feet ahead, 

Ever the flying garment as a mist 

Floating around her, trailed by knee and wrist, 

Ever the grace revealed and coveted. 

Not thine, O Love, the race! nor thine to fling 
Unseen the golden apple of delay, 

No artifice can any goddess bring 
To crown me victor, at the goal, today; 

Endless the race the tireless runners make, 

Lost self that self may never overtake. 


58 


A BURIAL URN 


ONG since he carved thee revel-wreathed that thou 



L Mightst laugh at Thanatos with flute and flower, 
And bear with destiny until the hour 
It gave the dust thy heart is keeping now; 

Fond dust that erst was warm from foot to brow, 

Rescued from dissolution and the worm 
To claim from thee, after a cycle’s term, 

An ultimate and meet sepulchral vow. 

Less cherished wert thou, shape symmetrical, 

For all thy circling joy of nymphs and these 
Consoling verses of Phocylides, 

Even the virtue of such burial, 

Did not the handful of her ashes rest, 

A mournful treasure, in thy marble breast. 


59 


THE GREATER MYSTERY 


W E journey to Eleusis, you and I, 

And walk the curving road beside the sea, 
Both pilgrims to the Greater Mystery, 
And seekers for the truth before we die; 

We who have asked of all earth’s wisest why, 

And entered every temple eagerly, 

Accosters of each high philosophy, 

Now yield the futile question with a sigh. 

That sapphire is the wave of Salamis, 

Those bees are from Hymettus, and the breath 
Of Attic summer brings abiding bliss; 

So Nature turns us from the thought of death, 

And we submissive, at the darkened door, 

Accept her mood and question her no more. 


60 


THE PAGAN END 


B E mine thy final boon, O furnace bed! 

Where the consuming element may make, 
Rather than slow decay, my dust forsake 
The form that life has left untenanted; 

Be mine the fairer Pagan end when dead! 

Soon as the cinerary flame may slake 
Its thirst upon my body that shall wake 
To the bright world no more, then what I said, 
Friend of my heart, remember! and the white 
Funereal vase of Attic emblem bring; 

There let my ashes rest; and let delight, 

With melic flutes that fauns are fingering, 

Detain the laughing group of nymphs that turn 
In carven grace around my marble urn. 


61 


1 


HERE END PAGAN SONNETS 
WRITTEN BY JOHN MYERS O’HARA 
AND PRINTED BY SMITH & SALE 
IN THE MONTH OF JANUARY 
MDCCCCXXIII 

































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